The present invention is related to hand-held wire stripping devices.
Various instruments have been devised for the purpose of stripping the protective, insulative coating from electric wires. The common jack knife is typically used for this purpose. However, various specialty tools have all been devised for the sole purpose of stripping the insulative coating from wires.
Tools devised to make short work of wire stripping are usually similar in form to pliers or clippers, having jaws that close against each other along a radial plane. Such devices typically include opposed recesses with cutting edges designed to cut through the insulative material, leaving the wire core. Such wire stripping appliances are used in a two step procedure. First, the insulative covering is cut by squeezing the jaws together. Then the wire or the tool is pulled along an axis perpendicular to the jaws to cause sliding movement of the clipped portion of the insulation away from the wire core. The difficulty presented is that the wire must usually be hand held. Forces required to strip the wire insulation from the wire core are often too great to counteract merely by holding the opposite end of the wire. At best, extended use of such instruments leaves the user with sore hands. Furthermore, the space required for the stripping operation is frequently not available.
It therefore becomes desirable to obtain some form of wire stripping apparatus that is operable to clip the wire insulation and force the insulation from the wire core in one smooth operation and that requires use of only one hand. It It is also desirable to obtain such a tool that includes other capabilities relating to electrical wires and wiring such as a wire clipper and a solderless connector clamp.